The present invention relates to a printing apparatus and print control method which enables e.g., a host computer, to designate a plurality of copies of a document having a plurality of pages to be printed.
When the number of copies of a document to be printed is designated, a conventional printing apparatus of this type consecutively prints out the designated number of one page and proceeds to the next page. In another conventional-type printing apparatus, image data where command interpretation has been performed is stored in a memory having a large capacity, then a plurality of copies of the document are printed by reading the image data out of the memory.
However, assuming a case where an operator designates the number of copies of a document to be printed by the aforementioned former-type printing apparatus, if the apparatus does not have a sorting function where receiving trays are moved every time a page is discharged so as to discharge each copy of the document to different receiving trays, the operator must manually collate the outputted pages into the designated number of copies of the document after printing is completed. Moreover, the printing apparatus of this type cannot automatically staple each copy of the document.
Further, there is a problem in the latter-type printing apparatus that the apparatus requires an extremely large memory capacity since the image data is stored in the form where commands are processed and developed.
Furthermore, in order to print a plurality of copies of the document, print data arranged in the page order is repeatedly transferred for a plural number of times. However in this method, in a case where the print data includes e.g., a command for permanently registering a font, the same font is repeatedly registered, wasting the memory capacity.